Argument over ‘best military branch’ ends in Montana murder

William Earl Cunningham (L) and Nathaniel Horn (Mugshots released by officials.)

The best branch of the US military may be up for debate – unless you are William Earl Cunningham, who told police he killed a fellow Montana man while arguing the topic. He is now being charged with deliberate homicide.

Nathaniel Horn and Cunningham were drinking together on Saturday
night at Lena Heller’s home in the Montana town of Laurel when
they began arguing over the best branch of the military, Heller
told KULR. Cunningham lives in the same complex as Heller, while
Horn was in town visiting a friend, the Billings Gazette
reported.

During the debate, Horn claimed the better branch was the
Marines, while Cunningham declared it was the Army. The argument
turned violent when the man favoring the Devil Dogs took a swing
at the man choosing the GIs. Cunningham later told police he
pushed Horn back, and "then I cut him. I did what the Army
taught me to do,” the Associated Press reported.

Heller, the hostess, called the police. When officers arrived at
the scene late on Saturday, 63-year-old Cunningham was leaning
against a car parked in the street, while 40-year-old Horn was
lying on the grass next to him, gasping for breath. Paramedics
were flown in from Billings, but Horn was pronounced dead less
than an hour later, the Gazette reported.

The assailant “voluntarily” told Officer Jeremiah
Johnson, “I cut him, he’s dead,” and “the knife’s on
the table,” according to the
charging documents. Horn had a cut on his right cheek, and
his neck was slashed from underneath his chin on the left side to
the right side of his neck.

The folding knife had a 3.5-inch blade.

"I think it's horrible that somebody would just kill somebody
for no reason, just because of an argument,” Heller
said. She blames the alcohol for Horn’s death.

"I know it was the alcohol,” she said. “But I don't
know, I guess that's what alcohol does. So I hope people can
really see what happened and if they decide to drink to be
responsible about it."

Cunningham's blood-alcohol level was 0.217 percent – above the
0.08 limit at which a person is considered legally intoxicated,
court records said.

The two men had previously argued about their military service
and over which branch was better. Both men have prior criminal
histories for violent offenses, Laurel Police Sgt. Mark Guy said
during a news conference Monday evening. He declined to detail
their crimes, but the
Gazette reported that their rap sheets span “several
decades.”

The Billings paper delved into Cunningham’s past, discovering a
1983 conviction out of Santa Clara, Calif., for being a felon in
possession of a firearm – a felony – according to court records.
In the Big Sky State, he was charged with felony forgery and
felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs in 1999, receiving
a five-year suspended sentence as part of a plea agreement.
However, he violated the terms of the plea several times over the
next eight months.

In August 2000, after Cunningham was involved in a disturbance,
Yellowstone County Sheriff's deputies searched his car and found
full and partially full 24-ounce cans of beer, an unloaded .38
special pistol, three knives, a sawed-off aluminum baseball bat,
a bag containing $110,650 in stolen savings bonds, an
undetermined amount of gold coins and 6 grams of marijuana. His
blood alcohol content when he was arrested was .108. He served
out the rest of his sentence in prison.

He was also arrested two more times before the deadly
confrontation over the weekend.

Horn was a designated violent offender, according to Montana
Department of Corrections records. He served time in state prison
on a burglary charge in 1994, had several partner family assault
charges, and jumped bail on his last charge in 2008 – only to be
arrested in Alaska in January 2009. He then served about two
years in prison.

On Tuesday, Cunningham made his first appearance in court, where
he was charged with deliberate homicide. He did not enter a plea,
and will be assigned a public defender. Justice of the Peace
David Carter set suspect’s bail at $500,000, according to AP.

The homicide is the first in Laurel since a vehicular homicide in
2012. There was also a fatal shooting in 2008, according to Guy.